Of Lords and Tyrants Ch. 9

Chapter Nine: Liberation from the Facility

The Doctor was running a bit distractedly as he tried to process everything that had just happened, and read the “map” that Caroline brought up on the screen.  Well, at least it was a map in the general sense that it plotted the multitudes of chambers in the building; but unlike the average map, he could see the entire path that Caroline had plotted out for Wheatley and himself to follow, and it included more than one level of the building, as well as a blinking indicator of the parties progress along that route.
Oddly enough, the best sign for the Doctor was that the walls seemed to be taking on more of a free form, chaotic structure, and the foliage seemed to creep back into every nook and crevice available.  But that was because every other sign the Doctor could note, indicated that the facility probably wouldn’t be standing for too much longer.  It was interesting how things like that just sort of fell into perspective in these types of situations.
A soft rumble, like far off thunder was heard, and that didn’t exactly do anything to calm anyone’s fears.  Caroline decided that it was time for her to take charge of the situation; “GLaDoS cares too much about testing to just let Her facility slip through Her grasp.  So She’ll be very busy trying to fix everything Space Core just set into motion.  Our best chance at finding our way out is going to be now.”

The Doctor didn’t need to be told twice to keep moving; and Wheatley wasn’t one to want to get left behind any time soon.  But as the Doctor saw the distance that the route on the map covered, he found himself slowly losing faith that he would be able to run the maze of halls and stairs that Caroline had planned, before the building crashed down around them.  So when he caught sight of a service door with poorly scrawled handwriting on it, beckoning him inside, he took it as a welcome opportunity.  Kicking the crash-bar, he bolted into the indicated room.
Once inside, the Doctor noticed that the only things to be seen in the room were a wall, lined from one end to the other with large tubes; that according to the worn posters pealing from the wall, were a part of the oxygen vent system that ran through the entire facility.
“Doctor!  What are we doing here?  Shouldn’t we be following Caroline’s map?”  Wheatley cried out, feeling more than a little desperation at the current turn of events.
“Yes, Wheatley has a point.  We really shouldn’t be stalling right now!”  Caroline typed plaintively.
“I’m not trying to stall here, but I’m not sure we’ll make it out in time if we don’t have a more direct route to an exit.  If this poster here is right, then I may have just found a faster way out of here.”  The Doctor called out over his shoulder, as he handed Caroline’s container to Wheatley, and ran up to the catwalk that nearly butted directly up to the large metal pipes.
Right above the rail line on each pipe was a vacuum-sealed service hatch.  Opening the first one he came to, the Doctor stepped onto the rail and looked up.  A grin spread across his face as he turned back to his companions, ”There’s portal paint on the inside of the tube, so it has to lead somewhere.”  He quickly opened the hatches to the others, and found that, in total, there were four pipes that could be portaled through.  Stepping into the hatch he had just opened, the Doctor fired a portal above him, onto the painted patch in the vent.  Upon stepping out, he fired one at the wall, and jumped into it.  He landed on the flat ledge where the pipe turned in a different direction.
Just staying long enough to balance himself, the Doctor sprinted down the pipe for a ways, until running into a dead end.  A metal grate blocked off the exit; but even if it hadn’t, the Doctor would have ended up back where he started, in the quarters set aside for test subjects.  
Upon exiting, he didn’t even bother to tell Wheatley and Caroline that the pipe had been useless.  Running to the next vent, he portaled his way inside, ignoring the bitter, acrid smell coming from within.  A moment later, he heard a thud behind him, and he turned to see Wheatley with Caroline right behind him.  “Did you think I was going to leave you?”  The Doctor asked.
“No, not really, it’s just that the catwalk is shaking so bad that it feels like it’s about to collapse under us.”  Wheatley said a bit too quickly for his own liking.
“Right, never mind.  This way.”  He pointed, and the trio made there way toward the other end of the pipe way.
The Doctor kicked down the grate without even looking into it, and hopped down; Wheatley close on his heels, just to come face to face with a room that made everyone freeze in place.  The first thing the Doctor set eyes on were a group of turrets, thrown in a heap toward the back of the room.  But soon after he calmed down from that he heard Wheatley start to panic.
“The turrets are offline, they aren’t going to shoot at us; calm down.”  The Doctor said, trying to sound reassuring.
But Wheatley was pointing at a different group of objects in the room, which on closer inspection turned out to be other cores, most in terrible outward condition; to the point that the Doctor wondered what they had to have gone through to get to looking that bad.  Taking the laptop back from Wheatley, he was a bout to take another step in order to get a running start back in through the way they had come when Caroline started panicking.
“Doctor, don’t step there, it’s not safe!”
Sure enough, the Doctor looked down in time to see the brown, acidic liquid from the test area pooling into the room from a once airtight tank to his right.  He jumped into the vent the same time that he heard a crackling sound under him.  Looking down at his boot he noticed that some of the acid had gotten to the very tip of the shock absorber on his boot.
“Dang and blast!  I still need these!”  The Doctor shouted in dismay as he stood back up, and dusted himself off.
The catwalk bucked and swayed as everyone made there way into the third vent.  The other end dumped them into a factory area, and the Doctor quickly noticed that the blue gel was spilling out onto the floor from an unseen source.  But just as he tried to turn around, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a box fall off the catwalk, and onto the gel-covered floor.  Trinkets surrounding the area all started falling down off the walls, sending themselves flying all over the room; and the Doctor just barely made it out without being hit in the head by a box that smelled suspiciously of bike grease and spoiled lemons.
At this point, the Doctor figured, it didn’t matter where the next vent took them; he would just have to make an exit.  The way things were headed, there was no way that anyone, let alone three people would be able to leave the way Caroline had first suggested.  “Here’s to hoping”, the Doctor thought to himself.

The end of the vent took them to what appeared to be a regular hallway.  But as the Doctor took a deep breath, his senses told him differently.  “It smells better in this direction!” he yelled to no one in particular; and then ran to a sign that reassured him even more.  “‘Experimental fuel and vehicle testing hangar’ ”, sounds like a place with a door!  This Way!”
The hall was long, winding, and had a slight incline.  The ground was shaking to the point that Wheatley was having a hard time keeping pace with the Doctor, as he skidded now and then on the cement floor.
Just up ahead, the Doctor saw a set of double doors with windows.  Just on the other side of the windows, the old testing vehicles sat rusting and decrepit.  Upon bursting through the door, the Doctor could feel air flowing slightly through the room, providing hope.  Behind a few rows of planes, jeeps, and vehicles that bore no understandable description, laid what the Doctor had been trying to find since his unwitting enlistment into testing; a door.  Granted, it was a garage type door that took up the whole wall; but none of the three escapees were about to complain, even if it would be hard to open.
Running to what appeared to be a pin pad to open the door, the Doctor tried sonic-ing his way to the other side; and hopefully, out of the facility.  There was just one problem.  
“Why do humans think that dead-lock seals are a good idea for exit doors?  Really, they must be insane.  How else do we get this door to open?”  The Doctor yelled in frustration, as he pounded on the door with his fist.
As if in answer, the ground shook again and a crack began to appear in the floor by the door they entered through.  After ushering Wheatley closer to him, the Doctor watched as a bright beam of red light burst through the pavement after one final quake, and rose all the way to the ceiling in an instant.
It wasn’t long before the laser bored a hole straight through the concrete, cracking the ceiling and allowing charred debris to fall back to the floor.  The Doctor stood there, eyes widening on his otherwise strait face.  Another second, and he had made a portal where the laser met the ceiling, and another next to the door they had entered through.  A second later, and the laser hit the hangar door, sending sparks everywhere.
Running towards one of the prototypes, the Doctor picked up a piece of scrap metal, and used it to break the window of a near-by automobile.  Wheatley was more confused than ever at the Doctor’s antics.  “What exactly is breaking everything going to accomplish?” he yelled over the growing roar of the lower levels of the facility.
The Doctor didn’t even stop to explain, as he ran back to the laser, glass and metal in hand.  Standing right behind the beam, he placed the glass on top of the metal, and placed it up against the beam, and changing its direction.
“Make-shift re-direction cube!” he yelled as he angled the scraps, and the laser back-and-forth across the door, until it finally gave way, and fell to the floor with a loud crash.  The second the other side could be seen, the Doctor noticed another door, this time guarded by four sentry turrets.  Diving behind a near-by crate, he made a portal on the wall to Wheatley’s left, and then angled the laser running through the portal.  A moment later, and all of the turrets were in his direct line of fire, and exploding on impact.  The next door fell shortly after the turrets, and finally, daylight flooded a section of the room that lay beyond.  

Caroline was overjoyed at realizing where they had ended up.  “That should be the service elevator for some of the larger parts that had to be transported down here.  It should lead right outside, to a docking station!  This is it, we’re almost out!”
The Doctor and Wheatley rushed into the oversized, open-sided crate that served as a lift, the Doctor pushing the switch before he was even all the way inside.  Pulling the sonic screwdriver out again, he did his best to speed up the giant rig, as Wheatley held on to the laptop and braced himself.
The lift rattled and bounced unevenly in its track, as it rocketed upwards, thanks to the sonic screwdriver.  Unfortunately for the Doctor, a minute and a half later, the lift crashed into a ledge above it, sending the Time Lord headfirst into the ceiling.  Shakily getting to his knees, the Doctor tried to steady himself, when Wheatley crouched down and offered his shoulder as a support.
“Doctor!  Are you alright?” Caroline typed in a panic.
“This is probably going to sound a bit pushy right, but we need to keep moving.  ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that I’m right in assuming that we don’t want to stick around here for too much longer.  One question though; it is safe too walk through this wall of wavy yellow stuff right?”  Wheatley said, trying very hard to sound authoritative.
The Doctor looked in the direction Wheatley was pointing.  “Yes, it’s called ‘wheat’.  It shouldn’t give us any trouble.” He grunted as he pulled himself to his feet.
They hobbled a long as fast as was possible; but between the Doctor’s blow to the head, and Wheatley’s continuous battle with checking to see that the Doctor upright with the added weight of Space Core’s body, and fighting to keep the laptop steady; it was not easy going.  To make matters worse, the ground was trembling, and it was getting more volatile by the minute.

Meanwhile, GLaDoS had put everything She’d had into trying to keep the facility from being destroyed.  Unfortunately, whatever that corrupted core had done, was now far beyond Her control.  GLaDoS knew that there was no saving herself or the facility, and this time there would be no rebooting.  With the final shut down so immanent, She gathered all the turrets near her, and slowly, they began to sing.  “One last ode to the age of Science.” She said pleasantly.  And as the walls, and chambers near Her exploded in flame, She joined in with the choir around Her.

Wheatley couldn’t help but turn to look at the chaos behind him as smoke, flames, dirt, and parts of machinery blasted into the air.  He froze in the mental terror of knowing that nothing would survive that.  Not that that was such a terribly bad thing, but what would he do now, with the only place he had ever belonged in gone?
Suddenly he was quite literally dragged from his thoughts as the Doctor pulled him away from the mechanical carnage going on behind them.  They both turned in time to see something like a capsule, shoot off into the sky.  “Must be the elevator.”  Wheatley remarked offhandedly.  
“Now really isn’t the time for speculation!” the Doctor yelled as he continued to run across the field.  But he didn’t make it much farther because the tip of the Doctor’s shock absorber, after finally having been fully corroded by the deadly acid, gave way from under him.  Immediately, he tried getting back up; only to have shrapnel surround him, piercing Space Core in the process.  Something heavy hit the Doctor in the head, and the last thing he saw as his vision blurred and sparked, was the ground, and Wheatley, racing over to him.

Miles away, a young woman set a tin of dough to rise on the counter.  Looking out her kitchen window, she thought to herself how much better the day had turned out from earlier that morning.  There were still a few angry looking clouds on the horizon, but even those were miles away.  A calmness spread in her mind. That was, at least, until she saw it.  A pillar of smoke could be seen rising into the late afternoon sky.  Now most people would have said that the only thing in that direction was a plot of wheat that went on for as far as the eye could see, but she knew better.  Over in that field was where she had been freed from her own personal hell.
The contents of her kitchen cabinets clinked, and knocked amongst themselves like particularly angry gossipers.  And more on instinct than actual thought, the woman ran to her bedroom closet, and extracted a pair of white boots with strange heels, and flew out the front door; and off towards the growing pillar of smoke.